by Dan Tyte
This was it.
I left the car and walked across the car park, past the hire cars and motor homes, through the sliding doors of the hotel. There was no welcome from a bell boy. No one offered to carry my luggage from the car. Just how I wanted it.
I was running deliberately late; around 20 minutes. Enough but not too much. As much as I hated the awkwardness of being the one watched walking in (I never knew what to do with my hands), I wanted to see her from afar, watch her for a while unnoticed; see her look around the bar, see others look at her, area sales managers eyeing her up, imagining her back in their queen-size bed, looking, trying to catch her eye, failing, and looking again. She was sat on a table for two in the corner. It was symptomatic of a hotel bar: soulless and licensed. Her red hair shone at the side of her pale face. She reached down under the table into her bag and brought her phone out, checking the time, checking if I’d called. She turned her phone over and checked herself in the reflective back.
‘Table for one, sir?’ Turns out they did have staff, nondescript Eastern European staff. God bless the Common Market.
‘No, I’m fine. I’m just going to join a…’ and I pointed in Christy’s direction, not quite knowing how to end the sentence.
Her dark eyes looked up and saw me. They smiled ‘at last’. I started to walk over, awkward all over… what to do with my hands, what to do with my hands. Ah. She stood up. Put them around her. Squeeze. But not too hard.
‘Hey,’ I said, putting her down.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘what time do you call this?’
‘Umm…’ I reached for my phone.
‘Not literally, Bill.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ I laughed, ‘of course.’
‘Shall we sit?’
‘I already was.’
‘Of course.’
We sat. Come on, Bill. You can do this.
‘Another drink?’ I offered, noticing her empty highball.
‘Sure, it’s table service. I’ll catch their eye.’
‘Cool.’
Non-threatening guitar music played in the background.
‘So, how was your day?’ I asked.
‘My day? My day was the usual answer the phone – tell white lies – smile and repeat. I’ve got it down to a fine art now. But forget that, how was your day? The pitch?’
The pitch.
With all that had been happening today, I’d completely forgotten about the pitch.
‘The pitch was…’
‘Good?’ she filled in.
‘Well…’
‘Bad?’ this time.
‘No… It was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.’ If I’d said this sentence before today it would have dripped with sarcasm. Not now.
‘But I thought it was Trent’s thing?’
‘It was.’
‘Okay. Okay. Well, wow, Bill. That’s great.’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘I’d raise a glass to that if I had a full one.’
And on cue a waitress appeared. Christy ordered a gin and tonic. I’d fucking love a gin and tonic.
‘Diet Coke, please.’
‘Celebrating then?’ Christy poked.
‘Celebrating,’ I said, blowing an imaginary party horn. I felt the bead of sweat come back.
‘Cheers.’ She raised an imaginary glass to mine.
‘Cheers.’
She leaned her jagged shoulders in towards me.
‘So, Bill, pitch aside,’ she was whispering now, ‘how have you really been? I’ve barely seen you recently. The only words I can remember you uttering to me were to get the key code to the staff file—’
‘Thanks for that by the way.’
‘It was nothing.’
The drinks arrived. She took a long, thirsty sip.
‘I’ve been, you know,’ I lifted the Diet Coke and imagined it was something else, ‘busy.’
‘So. I. Have. Heard.’ She emphasised every word. Morgan & Schwarz’s gain was am-dram’s loss.
‘What do you mean?’ I said a little too eagerly. I’d done my utmost to be discreet.
‘Well,’ she sipped again, ‘Carol told me you’d helped her secure funding for the soup kitchen. That’s wonderful, Bill. Just wonderful.’
Relief.
She didn’t know.
‘I figured it was a down payment for when the bottom falls out of the PR game.’
‘Bill, stop it. It was a wonderful thing to do.’
‘Well, lots of wonderful things have been happening recently.’ I sipped and whispered under my breath, ‘Are about to happen.’ My words were muffled by the background music. The sound system played a song used in the accompanying TV ad to a campaign we’d run promoting safe sex to teenagers. The singer was a 17-year-old with hot pants and a short temper. Her name escaped me.
‘How about you?’ I asked. ‘How’s life?’
She moved back in her chair. Smoky make-up did a good job of covering up the bags under her eyes.
‘You know…’
‘No, no I don’t.’
‘Well, work I covered.’
‘And…’
‘And what?’
‘And what about everything else?’
‘And it’s still really fucking hard to be there for Joe. I feel like a single mother who got pregnant aged nine.’ Her dark eyes welled a little.
I was going to help her.
Over the next two drinks I cheered her up. I played the clown. We joked about Pete (‘He definitely irons his tea towels,’ we agreed), pay rises (‘If Miles wasn’t so pally with Meinhoff, I’d swear he was Jewish’ – me), and community politics (‘Opting in is the new opting out’ – her).
All the while the elephant in the room tap-danced on the bar.
‘Bill, why are we here?’
‘Why are we where, Chris? Here, precisely now? Or here; the earth, the world, the universe?’
‘Bill…’
‘Well, you know what? I think I’m just beginning to find out.’ And with that, I put my drink down, reached into my pocket and put the room key on the table.
‘Bill…’
I put my hand on hers. My eyes tried to communicate a thousand things about this moment, the past and our future. I’d seen her eyes so many times before. I’d never seen them look at me like this.
‘Okay.’
She picked her glass up and sunk the last sip. She was not drunk. I was not taking advantage.
‘Come on…’
I settled the bill while she lingered by the door. We headed to the lobby. We moved silently towards the lift. I pushed the button. As the doors opened we caught a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror. We looked ready. We were on the precipice of something she needed.
All I wanted to do from the moment her red hair smacked me square in the face across the office floor was make her happy. I hoped this would achieve that. We stood closer as the lift moved through the floors, the rise and fall of her breath the only sound. We needed no words.
The doors opened and we walked the corridor to room 545. Our steps synchronised now. We reached the door and I slipped the key into the slot. A green light flashed. I pushed the door open and looked back at Christy. This was for her. And me. Here goes.
The light was already on. The room was everything you’d expect from a budget hotel: an inoffensive colour scheme, a 10-year-old TV; clean enough, tidy enough. Just right. Christy sat on the bed. I walked to the mini-bar.
‘Drink?’
‘Sure.’
I opened a single serving of gin and a small can of tonic. I took a glass out of plastic and mixed. She’d need this drink.
I’d had a hundred girls in a hundred hotel rooms before this moment but this, this would be different.
Christy kicked her heels off and lay sitting up on the bed. She sipped her drink.
It was time.
The bathroom door opened.
Christy screamed.
‘Hi, Michael.’
‘Hi, Bill.’
It was th
e one with the sad, smiling eyes. He looked smarter now. His hair had been cut away from his face. He’d shaved and moisturised. He wore one of my old Italian suits. But the eyes were the same.
Christy’s eyes.
‘Dad?’
‘Hi, darling. I’ve missed you.’
They broke down in each other’s arms. The tears turned to laughter and back to tears again.
I’d leave them to it. I left the room unnoticed, got into the lift and pressed for the ground floor.
The light wakes me up. I’m in the passenger side of the pool car, the seat tipped back and a suit jacket over my legs. The digital clock says it’s 06. 03. I turn the radio on. The vehicles surrounding me shine in the early morning sun; hire cars mainly, red-faced men behind their wheels with conference hangovers and two-day stubble.
‘…And finally, a French sheepdog will today attempt to break his own world record for riding a scooter over a distance of 40 metres in under 40 seconds. 4-year-old Ralph, from Bismarck, North Dakota, was unavailable for comment but his owner Roseanne Highvine said she was confident her pooch would remain the fastest thing on four wheels.’
‘Well, ain’t that something?’
I turned the radio off.
The engine revved. I followed the maze of the car park around clockwise, exited onto the motorway and drove away from the city.
Acknowledgements
Lyrics from ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’ by Bob Dylan used with kind permission from Columbia.
Lyrics from ‘We Found Love’ by Rihanna Feat. Calvin Harris used with kind permission from Def Jam.
Although every effort has been made to secure permissions prior to printing this has not always been possible. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions but if contacted will rectify these at the earliest opportunity.
Further acknowledgements
Thanks, in no particular order to Susie, Richard and all at Parthian// Jack Hudson// Lynne Barrett-Lee// Kirsten McTernan// Marc Thomas// my blood relations// Jess and Fishy (RIP)// Ninian Park// University of Liverpool's flexible arts timetabling// Kruger Magazine// Clwb Ifor Bach// Merlin// Working Word// Malky Mackay// rock and roll.
Parthian
The Old Surgery
Napier Street
Cardigan
SA43 1ED
www.parthianbooks.com
First published in 2014
© Dan Tyte 2014
All Rights Reserved
Epub ISBN 978-1-909844-50-6
Mobi ISBN 978-1-909844-51-3
Editor: Susie Wild
Cover design by Jack Hudson www.jack-hudson.com
Photography by Kirsten McTernan www.kirstenmcternan.co.uk
Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council
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